


Back in Black

by CorruptLimerence



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo, The Grisha Trilogy - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Inej and Kaz are a forever OTP, Parem, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, mild PTSD, the darkling is an asshole
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-19
Updated: 2017-06-19
Packaged: 2018-11-15 23:17:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11241321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CorruptLimerence/pseuds/CorruptLimerence
Summary: The crossover we all want and the crossover many are too sane to undertake.Kaz Brekker returns from his beating at the Slat to face one more calamity that evening. On their suite threshold stands the most powerful grisha in the world with demands for a Shu boy and armed to the teeth with threats. The leader of the Dregs squares up to face off the leader of the Second Army for the fate of the world.





	Back in Black

**Author's Note:**

> Was I foolhardy to try this? Maybe? But hell, if I couldn't see two of my favourite characters bitching at each other, I would cry.
> 
> This fic exists in a setting whereby Crooked Kingdom and Ruin and Rising take place at the same time. The Darkling is the one to bargain for Kuwei's life and not our beloved neighborhood pirate king. I imagine he returns to Ravka later that week to make his attack on the Fold and die tragically in Alina's arms. 
> 
> Until then, please enjoy my interpretation of the encounter that will never be!

Kaz hated surprises. Especially when they came in a tidal waves. There was no rest for the wicked and he was Dirtyhands after all. It certainly explained the hellish pulse in his bad leg and the exhaustion that pulled at his eyelids. He finally took the opportunity to rest his leg on an overstuffed ottoman when Jesper traipsed to the window.

He frowned. "There are guards outside.

"It's probably the stadwatch." Wylan answered.

"No you dont get it. It looks like they're wearing keftas." A bolt of electricity shocked the room, almost as if the air pressure had dropped.

Kaz took up his cane and hobbled to the window. Nina came to join them.

Several silhouettes stood sentinel at the breach of the hotel lobby. Kaz almost mistook them for comedie brute characters. They were indeed wearing keftas, a charcoal gray and muted against the smog of a Ketterdam night. The same emblem marked each one of them: a sun in eclipse. 

Oh how he hated surprises.

"Saints. He's coming." Nina said to herself under her breath. She ducked away to leave and was struck by Matthias' chest. The fjerdan searched her face for answers while putting a nauseating amount of care into holding her shoulders.

"Those are his colours and his symbol" Nina breathed a constitutional breath and a pinch of terror entered her voice. "The Darkling is coming." her eyes darted back to the window pane.

"What? Why is the Darkling coming" Wylan spluttered. His hands wrung at the material of his sleeves as he took a turn to press his face to the window. If Kaz wasnt so tired he would have smacked Wylan just for levity.

"Same reason as everyone that came today, he wants a leg up in the race to Kuwei." Inej was beside Kaz again, stating the words in a calmness he wasn't sure he could possess at the moment.

"We gotta go, he could be here in seconds." Nina went for the double doors across the room.

Kaz's mind, now functioning only on the memory of sleep and rest, kicked into high performance. The stadwatch and the barrel had banned together; the pits of Ketterdam turned out its pockets to fight them. He had had Colm Fahey interview the highest ranking members of the merchers council. But apparently that wouldn't be the weirdest thing to happen. He didnt think this evening would end with the most powerful grisha on the planet stalking up to their hotel room while he was still covered in blood. The Darkling and the second army stood to lose the most in this auction. And Kaz had more than a hunch telling him the Darkling wouldn't stop at a no.

"Kuwei, go to the other side of the building, there is an out of use dumb waiter. Get in and hide. Don't move until one of us comes to get you." Kaz ordered the Shu boy who nodded and dashed out as fast as his legs could take him.

"Matthias, take Nina." Kaz snapped at the two steadying each other.

"Why?" Nina bit back, incensed. He rolled his eyes.

"Fine, Nina take Matthias and go to the other side of the building." he repeated sarcastically.

"Why?!" Matthias yelled back.

"Ex-grisha and ex-druskelle who have their hands in each other's pockets, oh yes, he's going to love that." Kaz mocked in a voice too high pitch to belong to either of them.

"I'm staying." Inej's declaration made him angry. She was somehow beside him again, vowing more than he deserved and more than he could stomach.

"No, he only needs to see me." He studied the curve of her mouth and the inkiness of her hair like a starving man.

"He is a monster and a dark summoner Kaz, he doessnt reason with others." Matthias warned, halfway out of the door with Nina.

"Ironically I still don't care about your Fjerdan bed time stories, go."

"I'm not leaving you to him." Inej had fallen into position adjacent to him.

"What should we do?" Wylan tried to cover up the unadulterated fear in his voice.

Kaz would not get the chance to rankle off at Wylan.

The doors to the suite opened and a dark figure walked in like night on fog. Silence fell on the six of them as they found the Darkling himself in their suite flanked by no doubt his most powerful heart renders.

His mind ambled to archive the Darkling into a category. He was no snotty merchling or mob boss. The closest thing Kaz could call him was a statue, a marble one and just as pale. The darkest corners of the world congregated to drape a simple kefta over his frame and a glare of pure quartz to match. Surety peeled off of him in waves with every step he took. He looked like his hair had never been mussed and carried himself like he never lost.

Kaz didn't care. He had been to the Ice Court and escaped. He beat and manipulated the grimiest of Ketterdam's horrors, and one goth peacock wasn't about to change that.

He was Dirtyhands, Bastard of the Barrel and he had a ledger of his own impressive sins.

Kaz took a step forward and cracked his neck for an entirely different beast of a fight.

"Good evening." the Darkling greeted with a ghost of a nod.

Without prep time it occurred to Kaz he didn't even know how to address him. Tsar? Sovereign? First name 'The' last name 'Darkling'?

"Mr Brekker, your reputation precedes you."

Pretentious, that's what Kaz wanted to call him.

He heard Jesper's mouth snap shut and Kaz swore he would break his legs. This was the wrong time to be oggling.

"I should hope so." Kaz finally dignified the Darkling with an answer. There was a tiny shift in his facade of impassiveness. He ook a few steps forward, letting his leg scream at him for trying. "Forgive me if I don't bow-"

"I don't expect it," he fixed his leg and bloodied suit with a stare that could melt stone, "...I won't be offended if you take a seat either."

The comment was enough to heat his blood.

Kaz couldn't see his crew behind him, but he could definitely feel the burn of their appalled stares in his back.

The Darkling's eyes flickered to his gloved hands, and wounds.

But mostly his gloves.

The Darkling waltzed towards Kaz and he would have been more scared but the Darkling needed him, so instead he allowed himself to feel his smugness.

The leader of the second army brushed past him, the barest slip of fabric grazed Kaz's wrist. It was only a strip of skin but his flesh was still raw and tenderised from his beating at the Slat. So when the kefta's fabric make contact with him it was enough to make him wince and recoil.

The Darkling didn't miss it. 

Kaz choked the memory of corpses and water.

The Darkling went to sit on one of the many plush couches and stared up at Kaz as if he were an attendant from the Little Palace. Dirtyhands didn't bother to appear insulted at the power tactics he was trying to play.

"To what do I owe the pleasure." Kaz bit out.

"The auction." The Darkling replied when he was good and ready. His chin titled upwards and looked down his nose at Kaz.

"You're here to bargain for Kuwei's indenture." Kaz voiced for him.

"What makes you think I will deign to bargain with you" his lips curled into a humorless smile.

"Ravka is in the midst of a civil war, it doesn't need to invoke the wrath of the Kerch, the Zemeni, the Shu, or the Ferdans by taking Kuwei." Kaz added non-chalantly, maybe not wisely.

But that had been part of his plan to auction off kuwei since the very beginning. Kaz had invited all the beasts to the watering hole for one gangly Shu boy, and neither could take him without being devoured. The Darkling paid him another satisfied curl of his lip. Kaz had it seen a hundred times on different people. It meant he always got what he wanted and he thought he knew exactly how this would go.

"I pity the man who calls you a simple thief. You've been called criminal, entrepreneur, kidnapper, spy, which one do you prefer?" The Darkling probed.

"Well informed." Kaz didn't have the patience for the Darkling trying to wriggle out a weakness.

The man that reclined on his couch finally paid the others in the room a glance, barely making a note of their presence. They seemed to freeze in his gaze.

"Kuwei belongs with his own kind." His eyes dragged away from the crows. And this time a lilt in his voice indicated forcefulness. "There will be no place left in the world for grisha free from slavery, death, or persecution. Parem would turn my grisha into a non renewable commodity to be bought and sold. I will not let that happen."

He stood once more and cycled Kaz who was too exhausted and in pain to turn to keep in his eye line. He came to rest in front of Kaz once more. It made him feel more and more that Darklings were vultures rather than grisha. 

Kaz chuckled darkly. "I'm not a philanthropist."

"No, but every man has his price" he whipped back with a wave of surety.

"Unless you have at least forty million kruge in your big billowing cape there is no deal to make here." The frustrated note in Kaz's voice made the Darkling's eyebrows raise a hairs breadth.

"The Kerch society rests on the worship of free trade." The Darkling picked a non existent piece of lint from his kefta. "Greed is your god and it commands that you, at the very least, hear my terms."

"We don't all abide by belief," Kaz decided against snorting at him.

It almost ludicrous that he would appeal to him through some sort of religion when he and his crew were all heathens in one form or another.

"Unless you can tell me you worship Ravka's own living saint."

Kaz caught the twitch in his jaw and a flash of something dangerous over the Darkling's features.

He had been looking for a pressure point the minute the Darkling walked in. He had found it but knew intuitively if he applied force where the Sun Saint was concerned he'd be the origin for Kerch's own Shadow Fold.

"Wealth isn't all gold Mr. Brekker." He continued as if Kaz never spoke.

"Not in my experience." 

"Name your price"

Kaz gave the Darkling a chance to take back his proposal.

"Name your price." The darkling repeated in a low voice. Never had an offer sounded so threatening. "The Lantsov heritance is still fat."

Kaz had to throw back his head this time and chortle. To think the Darkling wanted to give him a king's inheritance.

"Which is hardly in your capability to give."

"For a thief your awfully concerned about ownership, it must be hard to be a criminal and be so very soft." The Darkling enunciated the words softly but it might felt more like a crack to his skull.

Kaz's already tattered patience tattered like worn paint. The last person who had carelessly thrown that word at him ended up with all of his fingers broken and covered in his blood and some from a few barnyard animals.

Instead of beating a canyon into the his perfect face Kaz spoke.  
"It hardly matters," not giving him what he wanted would piss him off more than any retort. "-you don't have the power to do-"

"It's in my power to give and take anything I wish."

"Ravka is dirt poor, and the Prince is still alive to take his inheritance from me or you. I can't be fooled into thinking otherwise." Kaz bit out. He didn't need to get set up against a prince of Ravka now of all times.

The Darkling's resolute tone volleyed back. "There are things money can't buy. We have grisha healers that would fix the break in your leg. Unless you like lumbering around like a hurt mongrel."

Jesper and Wylan put a steadying hand on Inej's squirming shoulders. Even Matthias felt enough loyalty to want to grunt at the black clad demon in front of them.

Kaz didn't budge, only his grip on his cane tightened. He knew what he was and wore it like armor.

"But I can't imagine that from you, not when you've crafted such a reputation for yourself." The Darkling baited again with a perfect mask of indifference.

When met with silence he continued.

"I would give Ms. Zenik a full pardon," his eyeline finally swallowed Nina who reared herself into a soldiers pose, as if by muscle memory much to Matthias' chagrin. "-even protect Mr. Van Eck from the Merchers Council, and even your Fjerdan if you so wished it. If need be I'll carve a space for you in Ravka where you can transplant the Dregs, move on to bigger territory and start your own kingdom." He paused, gauging Kaz. His voice lowered to a placating octave. "All this for one scrap of a boy who you hardly care about. Give him to me and become rich on sparing yourself the headache."

"I've never been a great admirer of monarchies, too many despots." he flung at the Darkling. "If you're offering so much, prove it in front of everyone at the auction tomorrow."

"I've been patient and generous Mr. Brekker, I have even allowed you the opportunity to profit from this," the Darkling stepped closer, letting his frame tower over Kaz.

Underneath the pain of his leg and the sound of his own mind working furiously a sharp sound rang out.

Too close.

Too close. Too close. Too close.

Kaz wanted to take a step away from the Darkling but couldn't without cowering. He batted away the hazy vision of the death barge that coalesced in the corners of his sight.

The Darkling pegged him to the floor with the cold slate of his eyes. "But I am always willing to deal in violence if it will make the sentiment clearer for your Barrel sensibilities."

"Oh good, I was wondering when you'd start threatening me. I was beginning to feel like i wasn't good enough." The candidness had taken the Darkling aback, or at least for what counted for it on his features.

With that Kaz continued, "You haven't offered me anything, nothing but a space to fill with sentimental backwash, you have no money and no hope to compete with five other nations. You must be desperate-"

A violent tug sent Kaz's cane whirring from his hand. Looking down, he saw skeins of darkness wrap themselves like claws around his body. Darkness pooled over the Darkling's hands, charged towards Kaz and ran up between his fabric and skin. The contact, the cold pressure of the darkness, Kaz was drowning all over again. Bile rose in his throat, he could feel the slick bloatedness of corpses on the Darkling's power. His knees buckled and his breath came out in ragged heaps.

Pathetic and weak, he screamed at himself, willing his legs to work against the disgusting feel of darkness on skin.

The crows tried to spring into action but at the very hint of movement the oprichniki took a step forward and held rank. What would Jesper's bullets do, or Inej's knives against a Darkling and an outfit of powerful heartrenders? The answer was nothing, nothing followed by their decapitation. The bitterness of the situation filled Kaz's mouth with a metallic tang.

"As I'm sure you know, Dirtyhands, every man has a tell." the Darkling said his name like it were a disease. "I just didn't think anyone would tailor his armour in the very image of his weaknesses. But luckily I didn't underestimate you there." His eyes trailed over Kaz's gloves.

The feeling of utter entrapment sent him reeling backwards in time. The barge smoke and murk of Kerch water mixed with a dark clad man with alabaster skin. Inej tried to tear herself away but at the very least the crew were competent enough to know he would kill him six times over if anything would happen to her.

"Let me make myself clear. Kuwei belongs to Ravka. Should this auction end with anything else but him in my hands I cut down every last person in that hall until there is no one left. And if you get away I will let the nichoveya loose on every single person in your crew and have them feed until they are picking their teeth with your bones. Or should I feel a little less merciful I'll throw you to the volcra."

Kaz kept his eyes on the Darkling, his own stare could bore through flesh. His teeth came down on his cheek and he figured out the metallic tang in his mouth was his own blood.

The vision of murdering the Darkling became an anchor. He managed to get his bad leg screaming into a kneeling position.

"Impressive." The Darkling mocked in feigned acknowledgement. "Never the less, this will happen unless of course my will is done. Am i understood." Kaz fought to stay conscious, fought to keep his eyes on the Darkling. his own body too weak to push pools of darkness and the ungodly things that lurked there. He swore he saw monsters curdling in and out of thick nothingness.

"Am I understood?" He repeated in a low voice.

"Yes" was the only word Kaz could muster.

"Good." The Darkling said as if rewarding a beaten dog. "I wish I could say it's been a pleasure Mr. Brekker, but it rarely is when in Ketterdam."

The darkness retreated from Kaz until his own weight fell to a heap on the lush carpet.

"I look forward to the auction tomorrow." The Darkling cast his sight down to Kaz, turned his back to the crows and with one dismissive glance left the suite, oprichnik in tow. The second the doors shut a cacophony ensured.

"KAZ."

It was Inej, not touching him but hovering.

The Darkling had barely done anything, skimmed his skin with a whisper of cold darkness and Kaz felt close to fainting. He could barely live with Inej seeing him faint once, but nearly collapsing in front of the others was worse. Knowing a Darkling knew his weakness made it all the worse.

The Darkling.

The spite and pure hatred for the very thought of the Darkling put air in his lungs

Kaz felt a build of exhaustion and adrenaline break in his body. A laugh, a hard and unjoyous sound, began in his chest. Still on the floor he laughed and laughed. The laughter disguised the uncontrollable tremors in his limbs and covered his need to scream. His monstrosity of a plan had left him with one comforting thought and it carried him through the panic rattling in his chest.

"Did the Darkling break you?" Nina was incredulous.

"How do we make him stop?" Matthias asked.

Inej's face greeted him as he opened his eyes from the horror of his memories. She was the first breath he took after leaving the harbour.

"Leave me be, I'm fine" Kaz's fit finally died with a last few ugly chuckles. He swatted away hands and clambered to his cane on the other side of the room.

"Do you want me to shoot him, tell me who to shoot and I'll shoot them." Jesper's loyalty was either chivalrous or stupid, and Kaz would bargain his share of the kruge on both. 

"If you shoot him it'll kill you in the end, and if youre not in top condition for this auction I'll tear your limbs off myself." Kaz fired back.

"Excuse me for being concerned for your welfare, next time I'll make a point to join." Jesper was about to open his mouth again, as if to ask what the Darkling did to him. As if it weren't Kaz's own frailties that sent him sinking.

He could see it on their faces. They all wanted to ask but knew better. Nina knew the Darkling's abilities the best, nausea and fainting were neither. Both affects were wearing out by now.

Kaz went to the couch and sat down, ignoring their suffocatingly concerned looks. Inej remained in her spot. With a once over of Kaz she set one of her knives to her lips and whispered feverishly.

"What are you doing?" Nina eyed Inej.

"I'm praying." Inej replied.

"Praying for what?" Wylan finally woke up from his stupor.

"That Sankta Alina rends his head off his shoulders." Inej gritted poisonously. She wore vindictiveness well. Kaz thought it brought out her eyes.

"Only if she gets there first," Kaz growled.

Pekka Rollins was the first on his list, but he thought he could make the Darkling a close second. And it took Pekka Rollins a much longer time to hit enemy number one, he had to begrudgingly give the Darkling points for sheer potency. The image of pulling out his tongue or beating his face into an unfixable mess kept the cold at bay. It even brought a ray of happiness when he imagined breaking the Darkling's legs to which Kaz imagined he would add a quip about mongrels.

"What does that mean for me", Kuwei tentatively reentered the room, pale with terror.

"I told you not to come back until one of us came for you." Kaz thought he was exasperated before. Had he been listening the whole time, if so this could have been a lot worse.

When the six of them validated Kuwei's concern they fixed him with searching and questioning stares. He huffed.

"It means nothing," Kaz said, "we go ahead as planned."

"Are you crazy, that was the most powerful grisha in the world saying he would tear us a new shadow fold?" Jesper exclaimed with a flap of his arms

"He is right demjin, he is a monster." Matthias added. 

"Our plan stays, if you all shut up and do your parts correctly Kuwei should be dead to everyone by this time tomorrow." It took a moment for it to click for everyone.

The Darkling would ultimately get part of what he wanted. Kuwei would be out of the hands of the Fjerdans or Shu who would use it against the grisha.

But Kuwei would never belong to him. After all his threats and displays he would not get what he wanted. Kuwei would be on a ship with a new name and new life by the time any of the delegations realized it.

"He will come after you once he thinks Kuwei is dead." Inej said.

"Well, maybe you should pray for Sankta Alina to kill him faster." Kaz grunted. He couldnt afford to think of that right now. Not when the auction hadn't even happened.

Shaken but still standing the group went to rest or order more food. Wylan went to count his supplies and Jesper went back to cleaning his pistols.

The sound of the Darkling's black coach exiting the premises echoed up to their room.

Kaz's face split into a grin.

Matthias was right. The Darkling was a monster.

But luckily for the Dregs, the Darkling had never met a monster quite like Dirtyhands.


End file.
